A Fortress in Brooklyn: Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg

Nathaniel Deutsch · Michael Casper

May 2021 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Steven Jay Cohen

About this audiobook

The epic story of Hasidic Williamsburg, from the decline of New York to the gentrification of Brooklyn. Hasidic Williamsburg is famous as one of the most separatist, intensely religious, and politically savvy communities in the entire United States. Less known is how the community survived in one of New York City's toughest neighborhoods during an era of steep decline, only to later oppose and also participate in the unprecedented gentrification of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Nathaniel Deutsch and Michael Casper unravel the fascinating history of how a community of determined Holocaust survivors encountered, shaped, and sometimes fiercely resisted the urban processes that transformed their gritty neighborhood, from white flight and the construction of public housing to rising crime, divestment of city services, and, ultimately, extreme gentrification. By showing how Williamsburg's Hasidim avoided assimilation, Deutsch and Casper present both a provocative counter-history of American Jewry and a novel look at how race, real estate, and religion intersected in the creation of a quintessential, and yet deeply misunderstood, New York neighborhood.

About the author

Nathaniel Deutsch is professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is coauthor of A Fortress in Brooklyn: Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg.

Michael Casper received his PhD in history from UCLA and has contributed to American Jewish History and the New York Review of Books. He is coauthor of A Fortress in Brooklyn: Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg.

Steven Jay Cohen has been telling stories his whole life, and has worked professionally as a storyteller since 1991. A classically trained actor, he has worked both on stage and behind the microphone for most of his career. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Steven now resides in scenic western Massachusetts.